The Compatibility: Relationship

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Gangnam Rile: Psy’s Past Anti-American Performances Stir Controversy

Gangnam Rile: Psy’s Past Anti-American Performances Stir Controversy - Before he was elevated to international superstardom this year thanks to the magic of his invisible horse dance, Psy was a rapper and music producer in his native South Korea with a bad-boy reputation. In the late ’90s he dropped out of Boston University and the Berklee School of Music without earning degrees, was fined for his first album in 2001 for using “inappropriate lyrics,” and in 2007 he came under investigation for shirking mandatory military duty in South Korea. Now there’s another indiscretion to add to the “Gangnam Style” star’s rap sheet: Psy is coming under fire for a pair of shocking anti-American performances he gave a decade ago.

Chung Sung-Jun / Getty Images - Psy performs onstage during the 17th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) at the Lotte Hotel on October 6, 2012 in Busan, South Korea.

According to Korean media reports, during a 2002 performance Psy hoisted a toy model of a U.S. tank and proceeded to smash it on the stage with a microphone stand, later joining the crowd in anti-American chants. Busan Haps reports that there was video of this incident posted on YouTube until recently, when it was removed by an entertainment company citing copyright claims. Psy’s on-stage protest was spurred by the killing of two 14-year-old Korean girls when they were run over by an American military vehicle on a South Korean road just north of Seoul. Anti-American sentiment was high, though the two soldiers driving the vehicle were found not guilty of negligent homicide during a court martial.

In 2004, Psy took the stage with a number of other popular South Korean performers at a protest concert to perform a song called “Dear America,” originally written by N.E.X.T., a South Korean metal band. Psy, along with the other musicians, sang along to the lyrics, which read:

Kill those f—ing Yankees who have been torturing Iraqi captives

Kill those f—ing Yankees who ordered them to torture

Kill their daughters, mothers, daughters-in-law, and fathers

Kill them all slowly and painfully

The 2004 concert was in protest of the al-Qaeda kidnapping of a South Korean missionary in Iraq. When South Korea refused to negotiate, refusing the terrorists’ demand that Seoul cancel its plan to send soldiers to help the U.S. fight the war in Iraq, the missionary was beheaded, and South Koreans took to the streets to protest the killing. These reports put Psy front-and-center in the protest concert, rapping about killing American soldiers.

After intense media scrutiny this week, the 34-year-old pop star issued a statement through a publicist Friday afternoon.

While I’m grateful for the freedom to express one’s self I’ve learned there are limits to what language is appropriate and I’m deeply sorry for how these lyrics could be interpreted. I will forever be sorry for any pain I have caused anyone by those words.

…

I have learned that though music, our universal language we can all come together as a culture of humanity and I hope that you will accept my apology.

In the letter, he cites his appreciation for the sacrifices of American servicemen and women, and his November 23 appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno specifically for members of the military. Indeed, Psy has appeared on countless talk shows in America in the latter half of 2012, offering nothing but effusive thanks to the nation for helping him become a household name.

Amid the controversy, a petition circulated to stop Psy’s scheduled performance at the White House’s annual Christmas In Washington event. The petition, posted on the Obama administration’s official “We the People” petition website, was ultimately taken down, citing a violation of the site’s Terms of Participation, but it asked the White House to rescind Psy’s invitation. It had nearly 500 signatures when it was removed Friday afternoon.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Friday that the Obama family will still attend the Christmas In Washington performance on Dec. 21, and Psy’s invitation hadn’t been revoked. It’s unlikely that these newly dug-up anecdotes will depose Psy from his king-like level of stardom. But perhaps, at the White House concert, at least, the invisible lassoing and galloping will be somewhat subdued. ( newsfeed.time.com )

Blog : The Compatibility | Gangnam Rile: Psy’s Past Anti-American Performances Stir Controversy

Austrians debate what to do with baby Hitler's home

Austrians debate what to do with baby Hitler's home - A suggestion to turn the Austrian house where Adolf Hitler was born into normal residential space has triggered a debate about how best to use an empty property still packed with historic baggage decades after World War Two ended.

The man who became Nazi dictator was born in the house in Braunau on the Inn, a town near Salzburg on the German border, in April 1889. His family lived there only three years, but his link to the three-storey building has left an indelible mark.

A retired local woman now owns the property, which Austria's federal interior ministry has been renting since 1972 and has sublet to Braunau.

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According to media accounts, the building - an inn when Hitler's family rented space there - has housed a library, a bank, classrooms and most recently a charitable organization's workshop for handicapped people, which moved out a year ago.

The question of what to do with it now is exposing splits between those who want to highlight its past and those who want to turn the page on an inglorious chapter of local history.

The mayor of Braunau, Johannes Waidbacher, caused a stir with a newspaper interview in which he proposed making the house into a standard residence.

"You have to ask in general whether another Holocaust memorial makes sense when there are already many around here," the mayor, born 21 years after the war's end, told Der Standard.

"We are stigmatized anyway. Hitler spent the first three years of his life in the city, and it was certainly not the most formative phase of his life. We as the city of Braunau are thus not prepared to take responsibility for the outbreak of World War Two," he was quoted last week as saying.

In a statement on Monday, Waidbacher rowed back a bit, saying "this house can never be allowed to become a shrine for die-hards" but also pointing out the city had a limited say.

"In the end the decision is up the interior ministry and the owner," he added.

An interior ministry spokesman said no decisions had been made yet, adding the most important thing was preventing neo-Nazi "mischief" from going on there. He said there were no plans to let the property be used as a residence.

The owner's identity has not been published.

Andreas Maislinger, a local historian and political scientist, has lobbied for years to turn the property into a state-owned "house of responsibility" that would serve as an international meeting place for young people.

The centre could offer reflections on Austrians' history, coordinate social projects and host workshops on projects such as ensuring the rights of Roma in Europe, he said.

"Thus the small city of Braunau would become a place of international understanding," he suggested.

"Braunau is a symbol because Adolf Hitler was born there, and the fact that this house has a certain symbolic significance means you have to handle it properly," he said.

Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938, and a debate still smoulders on whether Austrians were Hitler's first victims or willing accomplices. ( Reuters )

Blog : The Compatibility | Austrians debate what to do with baby Hitler's home

A Good Wingman Will Lie for a Buddy

A Good Wingman Will Lie for a Buddy - This just in: Researchers have found that a good friend will lie for you, though it helps if you're in the room when they're asked to fib.

This tendency toward situational dishonesty is especially strong for friends who are high in empathy, presumably because they really feel your pain and want to help out. But the research also found that if the potential for embarrassment were bad enough, even strangers would cover for you.

"People put themselves in the shoes of the other person and say, 'I would want someone to lie on my behalf so I wouldn't look bad,'" study author Jennifer Argo, a professor at the Alberta School of Business, said in a statement.

http://i.livescience.com/images/i/23763/iFF/friends-120120.jpg?1327091548

It's no surprise that people lie to save face, but there had been much less research on people lying to cover for someone else. The researchers explored people's willingness to act as a somewhat dishonest "wingman" for their friends by asking 95 undergraduate students to read a scenario in which a person tells them about a car they just bought and how much they paid for it. In some versions, the person was described as a friend of the student. In others, the car buyer was a stranger. Half of the stories had the person buying the car for $20,000, while the others had him paying $18,200.

Next, the scenario had a third person step in and say they had bought the same make and model vehicle but paid just $18,000. The experiment participants were asked what price they would tell this third person that the first car buyer had paid; essentially asking if they would lie to keep the first car buyer from looking bad, since he or she sort of got swindled.

Unsurprisingly, participants were more willing to lie for a friend than for a stranger, the researchers reported in November in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology. But even for strangers, people would downplay what the person paid if they'd been cheated of $2,000.

A nearly identical follow-up study with 117 more students compared how willing people were to lie for a friend depending on both the friend's presence in the room and the person's own feelings of empathy. Being present instead of absent makes friends more willing to lie for you, the results showed. And, of course, the more empathy the friend felt, the more willing they were to fudge the truth.

"Based on the findings, it would seem reasonable to expect that people who understand their friends should be willing to step in as a wingman in a number of different contexts if their friends are in need," Argo said.

But researchers don't yet know if the fibs are double-edged swords. Perhaps if your friends know that you'll spin tall tales for them, they'll trust you less, Argo said.

"If you're lying and I know it, it might make me question or cause me to doubt how much you lie to me," she said. ( LiveScience.com )

Blog : The Compatibility | A Good Wingman Will Lie for a Buddy

Meet Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend

Meet Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend - Remember the man Pradeep Manukonda, who had been stalking Zuckerberg? Well, a restraining order has been served to Manukonda, preventing him from going within 300 yards of Zuckerberg and his sister Randi, who is also Facebook's marketing director. Also protected in the order is (ahem ahem) Priscilla Chan, Zuckerberg's longtime girlfriend, reported TMZ.

Chan and Zuckerberg have been dating since his days at Harvard. The two met at a party while waiting in line for the bathroom; Chan later told The New Yorker that she thought Zuckerberg was "this nerdy guy who was just a little bit out there."

http://www.hindustantimes.com/images/HTEditImages/Images/Priscilla-Chan-Mark-Zuckerberg.jpg

That's not all. Zuckerberg had even offered Chan a job at Facebook with him. According to The Harvard Crimson, this was the conversation that followed.

"Hey Priscilla, do you want a job at the Facebook?" Zuckerberg asked a passing friend.

"I'd love a job at Facebook," Priscilla Chan '07 responded, offering him a Twizzler candy.

And the lady sure has her man under her thumb. Author and tech journalist Sarah Lacy has written that Chan has imposed strict rules on her relationship with Zuckerberg. One of the top rules: "One date per week, a minimum of a hundred minutes of alone time, not in his apartment, and definitely not at Facebook."

And yes, of course she is on Facebook. ( .hindustantimes.com )

Blog : The Compatibility | Meet Mark Zuckerberg's girlfriend

Why Am I Still Single?

Why Am I Still Single? - New research says there's a reason you're single--and may stay that way.. I was on the phone with my friend Beth, a 31-year-old international sales exec at a major Hollywood film studio.

"I can't believe a four-year relationship could end with us living on two separate coasts," she said, "But he was traveling so much and I finally just told him, 'This is not what I signed up for when I got involved with you.' So, we're officially separated."

She sighed. I sighed.

"Anyway enough about me, what about you, Italian girl? I thought they worshiped American women in the land of pasta and love, why are you still single?"

If I had a euro for every time I wondered that: Why am I still single. It's a question more than half of American women ask themselves, according to a report the New York Times put out in early 2007. This data includes women who live apart from their significant others, but all independent variables aside it's a figure that's rocketed significantly in the last couple decades.

Even as those 57.5 million of us gather round cozy wine bars with our girlfriends, enjoy Bridget Jones nights in sweats on the couch, or pack four different guys into one week (yep, it happens), we're likely to be puzzled over what we may be doing wrong: "That one wearing three carats with the husband more loyal than a black lab—what does she know that I don't?"—or if we actually need partners, as tradition (and Mom) seems to imply.

Jean Twenge is a psychology professor at San Diego State University and author of Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled—and More Miserable—Than Ever Before (Free Press, 2007) and co-author of the upcoming Narcissism Epidemic with W. Keith Campbell.

Based on recent research she has conducted to learn about current attitudes toward relationships, Twenge confirms, "There is in fact a massive cultural shift at work here." She says the number of women who are romantically uninvolved is a result of one major factor: our culture tells us we don't need relationships.

Call it the "singular-single syndrome": We have it. Twenge recently conducted a study of 200 student participants at San Diego State, and 90% of them answered the questionnaire stating they live by grand individualistic philosophies like, "You shouldn't ever need anyone else to make you feel complete" and "You have to make yourself happy."

Based on this study and a handful of others Twenge has conducted in the last few years, she concludes that today's young adults feel they need to be completely self-sufficient in their happiness.

The fact is, young American adults view deep emotional involvement with others as weakness and dependence. It's not just that our culture accepts and accommodates the single lifestyle now—it's that it actually disparages the individual who isn't focused solely on her own personal advancement.

The ubiquitous teachings from our capitalist culture media, Boomer-generation parents who toiled to teach us the importance of pursuing personal goals, and teachers in an increasingly survival-of-the-very-fittest education system—all these emphasize the individual and her goals, not her need for involvement with others.

Twenge also said that a study she's currently conducting with W. Keith Campbell leads to the conclusion that narcissism in America is higher than it's ever been before, and by definition of considering themselves more important than the people they associate with, narcissistic people make terrible relationship partners.

Twenge blames this spike in narcissism on societal teachings like those aforementioned but also feels that purported social networking devices like MySpace and Facebook are less a method of connecting with others than a means of shameless self-promotion giving the individual limitless opportunity to think about themselves and advertise why other people should want to know them.

Some users even employ social networking sites out of romantic malice, attempting to provoke jealousy or track the whereabouts of an ex. And for some couples, being on each other's friend lists is a topic more taboo than first-date sex. "No way would I add (my new girlfriend) to my page," says Kevin, 30, an engineer near Pittsburgh. "I think she's pissed about it but if it ends, it will be too awkward if we're able to keep tabs on each other."

Any way you slice it, we're all looking out for Number One. Here's the trouble: the more time we spend thinking about ourselves, formulating clever responses to friends’ online comments about us, posting our most attractive photos, and "pimping our profiles" to leave impressions on our contacts, the less time we spend actually interacting with and caring about others.

Even the word "friend" has transformed from an endeared noun used to describe an intimate, trusted companion to a verb that implies a quick click of the mouse. "Listen, I gotta run, it was nice to meet you. Remember to friend me tomorrow." We lack the basic fundamental of all relationships – spending time together – and personal eye-to-eye contact continues to grow more rare.

Chris Morett is a sociology professor specializing in family and marriage at Fordham University in New York City. Morett echoes this cultural emphasis on the individual.

He says our communities and peer groups have broken down significantly in the last decade, and our consumer culture promises the singular single that you can "Have it your way." Thus young Americans are less willing to compromise their own desires than ever before, and Morett goes so far as saying that the American dating process has become similar to other means of shopping for a product.

Because women don't need marriage for the economic stability and source of identity the institution provided decades ago (because the majority of American women nowadays were not raised simply to be wives but to value personal advancement by self-sufficient means, and women are economically independent deriving their identity from their work and other societal roles, not just from being a wife) marriage is not a necessity but a choice.

So when a woman dates a man and he doesn't possess all the "features" she requires, she briefly deliberates and continues shopping (Is passionate about his work, check. Loves to travel, check. Forgot to ask how my meeting went, uh-oh. Completely unacceptable.) No longer does a woman need a man or a marriage; now she wants a soulmate, a partner to share her interests and values and who provides passion and support and fun. She desires a man who won't require her to sacrifice her identity or every aspect of the single lifestyle she's come to enjoy.

But until we meet him, the solution to the single person's isolation may be simple: shut the lid on our laptops and get over ourselves--you don't have to do it all on your own. We'll only find the comfort to our singles' loneliness by spending time in the physical presence of people we love. If we want love, we have to love. We have to open our hearts to connecting again. ( yourtango.com )

Blog : The Compatibility | Why Am I Still Single?

Ten Red Flags In Dating Relationships

Ten Red Flags In Dating Relationships. When starting a new relationship, many women (and men as well) tend to overlook some behaviors in their new partner that do not bode well for the future.

Then, down the road, comes the exclamation ‘If I had only known...’. As a Psychotherapist who has worked with mostly women and a few men in the field of Domestic Violence, during counseling sessions we can always trace back unpleasant and also dangerous character traits to the very start of the relationship.

Here are some ‘Red Flags’ to watch out for in a new partner.

He makes decisions about where to go with little or no input from you.
He belittles your opinion when the two of you are alone and may call you names.
He makes disparaging remarks about you in front of others and may talk about you as if you were not there.
He may be rough during love-making and make you engage in acts you do not like.
He does not want to spend time with your friends or family and insists you socialize with his people.
He will not acknowledge your areas of expertise and may put down what you do in the workplace - ignore any of your accomplishments.
He may openly flirt with other women and then accuse you of being jealous when you object.
He gets angry and loses his temper over trivialities. Stays angry for a long time and attempts to blame all arguments on you.
May hit walls when angry.
One of the main factors is that he comes on very strong in the beginning of your relationship - sweeps you off your feet - and wants an exclusive relationship too quickly. Many women feel flattered at the intensity of the man’s seeming need for an immediate connection and consequently overlook the inappropriateness of it.
*This should not be confused with ‘love at first sight’ where one or both parties feel an instant connection - without any of the aforementioned behaviors.*

There are many other factors that could be listed - but if the man in your life begins displaying the above qualities - realize it will not get better, only worse. He will likely be unwilling to discuss his emotions openly and feel that women are the inferior sex.

If this describes your man, run - do not walk - out of his life. The next step will likely be physical abuse.( loveletterbox.com )

Blog : The Compatibility | Ten Red Flags In Dating Relationships

Try at your own risk

Try at your own risk . Going out shopping with your significant other has rarely been a top priority for husbands. Especially when you know who foots the bill. Lately,

however, the experience has turned rather "trying" for me.

I am sure we are all familiar with the trial room facility made available in shopping malls. Whenever my wife and I go shopping for ladies wear, my wife insists that I stand or sit right outside the trial room and give her my feedback about the outfit. "How does this look?" However silly and easy it may sound, males will agree that it gets really edgy during those few minutes which never seem to end without other females giving you a rather awkward look. Most of us pray that it quickly dawns on them that we are not waiting there to ogle at them or at their dresses and that we have a 'standing' instruction from our female partner to wait on her and comment on the tried costume.

Some really sensitive females are rather quick to jump to the conclusion and try to shoo us away or ask us to provide a credible reason to stand there. Suddenly, males start to doubt the very intention of naming such chambers as trial rooms!

Having survived the first trial, a bigger one awaits us ahead - feedback on the outfit. It could be verbal or otherwise. Sometimes, it's a clear yes or no. Other times, it is just a shirk of the shoulder with a confused look or a 'why not try the other one too?' look. But almost every time it is a tight rope to walk and the supposedly safe response pops out - look good but what do you think? As many will agree, she usually doesn't and you begin to wonder who exactly is being tried!

Fun begins even as you are waiting for your partner to pop out, you cannot help giving unintentional feedback to other trial-seekers as well. Since most of these trial rooms are clubbed, whenever someone whom you don't know tries a new outfit and walks out with a question mark on her face waiting to be answered, it is tempting to quickly check out and deliver your opinion - non-verbally of course. However unintentional it be, females are sensitive to public glare and quickly catch the signs. And the strange yet naughty part is when sometimes they actually consider your feedback! Women who agree must be smiling by now.

It sometimes also happens that you want your partner to try on a dress being tried by another lady. Now that's a tricky - or trying - situation. You can't just ask some one else to share the garment before she has opted not to buy it. So, you need to wait for her decision. A cheeky, but audacious, move could be to send her not-so-favourable signals when she tries that particular outfit. If she does decide to skip it, another trial is how to recommend that very dress to your partner and yet not make her feel otherwise about you. What if she asks, "Whom exactly were you watching out for?" or the more aggressive, "What exactly do you do sitting here?"

Well, if you do manage to survive the trial so far and your partner opts to buy your recommendation, also remember to drop in a prayer that the next time when you and your partner go shopping and you bump into the same lady, your partner is not wearing the same dress. A trial by fire might suddenly look very real. ( indiatimes.com )

Blog : The Compatibility | Try at your own risk

Invite your ex to your wedding?

Invite your ex to your wedding? -- Say you're getting married. Maybe you've had a few serious boyfriends before. Perhaps you were even engaged to one of them. Or you might have just had a series of one-night stands that never turned into more than a few steamy stories you told the girls about over a pitcher of sangria.

Would any of your former flames make their way onto your wedding invite list? The subject has spawned divisive debates, countless chick flicks, and a memorable episode of "Friends."

Attending a wedding when you're lusting after the groom (or bride) is probably not a good idea for your own sanity.

But for ladies who see exes as friends, rather than as dangerous reminders of a rather fun pre-wedding life, inviting anyone from an office crush to a former fiancé seems normal.

How you view your ex may decide whether he should be invited to your wedding.

Should you invite your exes to your wedding

I DON'T:

Getting married is all about a new beginning shared with your closest friends. Why would you want to invite your ex and blemish your special day with memories of a bad breakup?

This is your day and also your partner's day. An ex doesn't really have any place in such a celebration. It is like letting the past be a part of your future.

Also, no matter how amicable the breakup has been, I don't really believe that you can be good friends with an ex. You cannot stop people from fancying your fiancé or husband, but then inviting an ex -- well, it is out of order.

It really reminds me of that movie "My Best Friend's Wedding," starring Julia Roberts, and we all know what happened in the end. If your fiancé still keeps in touch with an ex, well, that is because he/she might still have feelings for them. Unless it is their desperate need to show that they have too many friends at their wedding -- even that is still out of order. --Dimi Gaidatzi

I DO:

I invited two of my ex-boyfriends to my wedding. I guess I'm more casual about those things. One guy was my big love in college. It had been a really long time since we split and we had developed a friendship. We had dated for ten years, and then ten years had passed since we broke up.

The four of us (he and his new girlfriend, my fiancé and I) had hung out before my wedding. It's almost like he's an old cousin.

I had dated the other guy for six months. We decided we worked better as friends than as a couple. Both of these exes had become friends with my fiancé too, before we got married. This ex (the one I dated for just six months) even spoke at our wedding. We are still friends now.

My husband and I actually met through his ex-girlfriend, whom he had become friends with. So maybe it's in our genes, to be friends with exes. We also had a really casual wedding. It was a big party, basically. So maybe that helped. ( cnn.com )

Blog : The Compatibility | Invite your ex to your wedding?

Acceptance of Chronic Illness Helps People Move On

Acceptance of Chronic Illness Helps People Move On. Hoping for recovery may actually prevent happiness, researchers say. For chronically ill patients, giving up the hope that they will get better may actually lead to more happiness, U.S. researchers suggest.

"Hope is an important part of happiness, but there's a dark side of hope. Sometimes, if hope makes people put off getting on with their life, it can get in the way of happiness," Dr. Peter A. Ubel, director of the Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine at the University of Michigan Health System, said in a university news release.

He and his colleagues studied patients who'd just had a colostomy, which means their colons were removed and they had to have bowel movements in a pouch outside the body. At the time of the surgery, some patients were told the procedure was reversible and they'd have a second operation in a few months to reconnect their bowels. Other patients were told the colostomy was permanent.

The patients were followed for six months, and the researchers found that those without hope of regaining normal bowel function were happier than those with reversible colostomies.

"We think they were happier because they got on with their lives. They realized the cards they were dealt, and recognized that they had no choice but to play with those cards," Ubel said. "The other group was waiting for their colostomy to be reversed. They contrasted their current life with the life they hoped to lead, and didn't make the best of their current situation."

The study, published in the November edition of Health Psychology, also may explain why people whose spouse dies often recover better emotionally over time than those who get divorced, the researchers said.

That's because people whose husband or wife dies have closure, while those who get divorced may still have hope for some chance of reconciliation, they explained. (HealthDay News)

Blog : The Compatibility | Acceptance of Chronic Illness Helps People Move On

Doctors Spending More Time Now With Patients

Doctors Spending More Time Now With Patients. Quality of care increases with longer doctor visits, researchers add. Family doctors are now taking more time consulting with adult patients, seeing them more often and improving the quality of visits, a new study suggests.

"Patients spent more time with their primary care physicians during office visits in 2005 than they did almost a decade earlier, and overall they seemed to receive better care," said Dr. Lena M. Chen, from the University of Michigan Health System, the lead researcher of a study reported in the Nov. 9 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Just as the U.S. health care system is struggling to improve care and lower costs, the researchers noted that the population is aging and doctor income is falling, leading some to worry that doctors might cut patient visits shorter to make up the short fall.

"Any efforts to increase efficiency in primary care should take into account the association between time spent with a physician and quality of care," Chen said.

To find out if these factors affected the quality of care provided by primary care doctors, Chen's team collected data on more than 46,000 visits to primary care doctors between 1997 and 2005.

They found that visits to primary care doctors increased 10 percent, from about 273 million visits in 1997 to 338 million in 2005. And the average duration of an adult primary care visit increased by 16 percent, from 18 minutes to 20.8 minutes, Chen said.

For regular check-ups, time with the doctor went up 3.4 minutes; for diagnosis of diabetes, the visit increased 4.2 minutes; for high blood pressure, 3.7 minutes, and for a diagnosis of joint disease, the visit lengthened 5.9 minutes.

Moreover, quality of care also improved according to nine medical, counseling and screening indicators used by the researchers.

Counseling or screening by doctors took 2.6 to 4.2 minutes longer than visits without these services. Providing medication was not associated with longer visits, the study found.

Office visits may be lengthening partly because doctors are seeing more older, sicker patients, the researchers said.

Also, patients are taking more responsibility for their care, which means longer visits, said Dr. Greg Sachs, professor of medicine and director of the division of general internal medicine and geriatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine, who was familiar with the study findings.

"People are coming in with more questions, more information and an expectation to be more involved in making decisions about their care," he said.

That means that doctors must work longer hours and see more patients to maintain their income, Sachs said.

Health care professionals "are looking for creative solutions to free up doctor time, and doctors are really working a lot harder," he said. "Things like having nurse practitioners or physician's assistants assist in the care of patients frees up physician time for more complex patients," Sachs added.

Group visits -- in which multiple patients with the same condition are seen simultaneously to discuss care and self-management -- are another strategy, Sachs said.

But fewer people are choosing family medicine as a career, largely because of lifestyle and work demands, he said.

Improving quality of care will probably require wider use of electronic medical records and better reimbursement of family doctors, the researchers noted.

In another report in the same issue of the journal, research shows that the waits at emergency rooms have grown longer.

In 2006, one in four emergency patients waited longer to see a physician than recommended at triage, an increase from one in five in 1997, researchers found.

"Emergency departments are increasingly overcrowded, thereby straining resources," write researchers from Yale University School of Medicine. "Triage assessment is intended to mitigate this strain by ensuring that the most acutely ill patients are prioritized for assessment, regardless of the competing demands on ED physicians' time."

Long waiting time does more than lower patient satisfaction, the team noted. It also limits access, causes patients to leave before being seen and, "is associated with clinically significant delays in care for patients with pneumonia, cardiac symptoms and abdominal pain," they added. (HealthDay News)

Blog : The Compatibility | Doctors Spending More Time Now With Patients

People Move On

People Move On. Hoping for recovery may actually prevent happiness, researchers say. For chronically ill patients, giving up the hope that they will get better may actually lead to more happiness, U.S. researchers suggest.

The patients were followed for six months, and the researchers found that those without hope of regaining normal bowel function were happier than those with reversible colostomies.

That's because people whose husband or wife dies have closure, while those who get divorced may still have hope for some chance of reconciliation, they explained. (HealthDay News)

Blog : The Compatibility | People Move On